Nick Gillespie on Pot’s Black Market Backlash in Colorado and Washington State

In 2012,
writes Nick Gillespie, “voters in Colorado and Washington passed
full-on, no-hemming-or-hawing pot legalization by large majorities.
Lawmakers in each state have spent the better part of the past year
figuring out how to tax and regulate their nascent commercial pot
industries, which will open for business in 2014 (until then,
recreational pot is only supposed to be cultivated for personal
use). The spirit behind the legalization efforts in both states was
that marijuana should be treated in a ‘manner similar to
alcohol'”:

Unfortunately, it’s starting to look like both states are
going to treat pot in a manner similar to
alcohol during Prohibition. Not only are
pot taxes likely to be sky high, various sorts of restrictions on
pot shops may well make it easier to buy, sell, and use
black-market marijuana rather than the legal variety. That’s a
bummer all around: States and municipalities will collect less
revenue than expected, law-abiding residents will effectively be
denied access to pot, and the crime, corruption, and violence that
inevitably surrounds black markets will continue apace.

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